Catholic Mission: World Mission Month 2016

World Mission Day is celebrated every year in every country wherever there are Catholics committed to building a better world for all of God’s people, a world where everyone has all they need to live a dignified and fulfilling life. It is the day on which we reflect on the urgency to proclaim the Gospel in our times.

Missionary activity is a response to the love with which God loves us. God’s love is the spiritual energy that can make harmony; justice and communion grow among persons, races and peoples for which everyone is searching. It is God, who is Love, who leads the Church towards those farthest away and calls us to be renewed from the original source, Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God.

The God of love is the source of care, tenderness, compassion, hospitality and interest in other people’s problems, for spreading Christ’s charity around the world.

Catholic Mission around the world has the responsibility of promoting a dignified and fruitful celebration of World Mission Day. This year World Mission Day is Sunday 23rdOctober 2016.

Pope Francis’ Message for World Mission Day 2016:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which the Church is celebrating, casts a distinct light on World Mission Sunday 2016: it invites us to consider the missio ad gentes as a great, immense work of mercy, both spiritual and material. On this World Mission Sunday, all of us are invited to “go out” as missionary disciples, each generously offering their talents, creativity, wisdom and experience in order to bring the message of God’s tenderness and compassion to the entire human family. By virtue of the missionary mandate, the Church cares for those who do not know the Gospel, because she wants everyone to be saved and to experience the Lord’s love. She “is commissioned to announce the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel” (Misericordiae Vultus, 12) and to proclaim mercy in every corner of the world, reaching every person, young or old.

When mercy encounters a person, it brings deep joy to the Father’s heart; for from the beginning the Father has lovingly turned towards the most vulnerable, because his greatness and power are revealed precisely in his capacity to identify with the young, the marginalized and the oppressed (cf. Deut 4:31; Ps 86:15; 103:8; 111:4). He is a kind, caring and faithful God who is close to those in need, especially the poor; he involves himself tenderly in human reality just as a father and mother do in the lives of their children (cf. Jer 31:20). When speaking of the womb, the Bible uses the word that signifies mercy: therefore it refers to the love of a mother for her children, whom she will always love, in every circumstance and regardless of what happens, because they are the fruit of her womb. This is also an essential aspect of the love that God has for all his children, whom he created and whom he wants to raise and educate; in the face of their weaknesses and infidelity, his heart is overcome with compassion (cf. Hos 11:8). He is merciful towards all; his love is for all people and his compassion extends to all creatures (cf. Ps 144:8-9)…

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